I'm a 33-year-old male. I've been running since high school, and, until last year, I'd had no major injuries other than Achilles tendinitis in college. I was just diagnosed with my fourth stress fracture in just over a year.
August 2013: right pubic stress fracture
December 2013: another right pubic stress fracture
April 2014: left sacral stress fracture
October 2014: right sacral stress fracture
After each injury I:
- immediately stopped running
- had an MRI (or MRA)
- cross trained via deep water running and elliptical
- transition back to land running SLOWLY starting with run/walks
In the past year, I've:
- been seeing a PT who works with runners in order to increase hip strength and flexibility
- had a professional gait analysis performed (not at a local shoe store) in order to make small corrections to my stride (it was actually pretty good to begin with according to them)
- work vigorously to strengthen my glutes and made glute strengthening a part of my daily routine
- had MRAs to rule out labral tears and impingement
- started taking daily vitamin D and calcium supplements
- increased my protein consumption
- started running my easy days much easier
I've always:
- run a large percentage of my mileage on soft surfaces
- made sure to consume enough healthy calories
Despite all of the work I've been putting in, I continue to get stress fractures as soon as I start running again. I feel that there has to be some sort of bone density / thyroid issue here, but my ortho seems to be very confident that isn't the case.
Have any of you male runners had issues like this? I'm really at a loss right now.